


all my spaces are filled with you

by annabeth_writes



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Season 5 AU, begins in 5x10, insert eyes emoji, or are they...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25890178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annabeth_writes/pseuds/annabeth_writes
Summary: As the group travels north after what happened at Grady, Daryl starts seeing Beth where she shouldn't be. Though convinced at first that she's another ghost determined to haunt him, he begins to notice strange things about her visits when he realizes that she's counting down each time she appears. Is she just another specter that he's doomed to suffer for the rest of his days? A reminder of his perceived failings? Or is she something more?
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Beth Greene
Comments: 110
Kudos: 97





	1. Ten

**Author's Note:**

> I posted the first two chapters of this fic a very long time ago on another account. Having rewatched up to a certain point in the show and after reading a lot of wonderful bethyl fanfic, I decided to pick it up again on my main account. I hope y'all don't hate it! I have no idea what I'm doing!
> 
> Title: Broken Bridge by Daughter Darling

Pain throbbed in his head and exhaustion weighed down his limbs and tugged at his eyelids. His mouth felt like sandpaper and his stomach twisted and ached for something substantial. But still, Daryl could not bring himself to lie down and sleep. It was all he could do to chase away the demons when he was awake. He couldn’t do anything about them if he was asleep. He thought that the lack of water was really getting to him when he heard it. The echo of a laugh, the distant sound of a piano, a sweet song about a world that was long gone. He'd heard Rick tell the story about what he experienced at the prison, about the voices of ghosts on a phone that couldn’t possibly work. About seeing his wife after her death. Daryl just never thought it would happen to him.

“You should sleep.”

Her voice made his chest ache and his eyes prick with tears that he thought he was done with. Daryl didn’t dare to look, though he wanted to more than anything in the world. Part of him almost hoped that it would go away, that she would leave him be. In the end, the temptation was too great. So he turned his head and looked, his breath catching in his throat. Her hair was messy as always and her face was clear of the wounds that she had when he saw her last. There was a sparkle in her blue eyes and a small smile on her lips. She had no right looking so beautiful when there was nothing but ugly in this world. Daryl was convinced of it now. Nothing as pure as Beth Greene should be in all this darkness. So why was she here?

“I’m seein’ things,” he said, his voice quiet and rough.

“Probably,” she said, leaning back against the barn wall next to him. “You shoulda taken that water.”

“Coulda been poisoned.”

Daryl picked at his dirt-lined fingernails, turning his head away. She was too bright. Too beautiful. It hurt to look at her.

“This barn looks kinda like ours. At least how it used to be,” Beth told him.

He glanced around, peering up at the loft above them and the stalls along one side of the barn. From what he’d seen of the barn at the Greene family farm, she was right.

“It’s gone now,” she said softly.

“So are you.”

With a sad smile and lowered eyes, she focused on the object beside him.

“I love music boxes,” Beth said, her hand fluttering over the yellow box but not touching it.

“It don’t work,” he told her.

“You can fix it. For her.”

She nodded at Maggie where she was lying on the ground, her back to them.

“What’s the point?” Daryl asked.

“I love music boxes,” she repeated.

He stared at the box for several moments before picking it up. As he opened it, Daryl heard a soft sigh beside him.

“Ten.”

“Huh?” he said, glancing over at her.

She stared off into space, seeing something that he couldn’t. Daryl didn’t question her about it, feeling damn sure that he didn’t want to know.

“Why are you here?”

Beth looked at him, a jumble of emotions in her eyes.

“You know,” she said, leaning her head back against the wall.

Daryl watched as she sank her teeth into her bottom lip, an action so human, so Beth, that it made him ache to touch her. But he didn’t want to ruin the illusion, didn’t want to prove to himself once and for all that she wasn’t really here.

“You were right before,” he said quietly.

Beth tilted her head to the side with an unspoken curiosity in her eyes.

“I miss you,” Daryl mumbled.

“I told you so,” Beth whispered, giving him that sad smile again.

He felt his exhaustion bearing down on him once more but refused to let his eyes slide shut, knowing she could go at any moment. Part of him wondered if this was all just a dream. If he’d fallen asleep without knowing. But there was the pain in his head, dulled by her presence but still there, and the persistent dryness of his mouth. He could feel the hardness of the ground beneath him and he could hear the patter of rain against the outside of the barn. Abraham was snoring softly and Judith was cooing in her sleep.

“You should fix it,” she told him again.

Somehow he knew it was time. Turning away, Daryl closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He refused to watch her go. He’d lost her too many times to see it happen again. Minutes passed in silence. Finally, Daryl opened his eyes and focused on the music box, pulling it open to see the problem. He didn’t say a word. Didn’t make a sound. There was no point. He was alone again, silence surrounding him until a light tinkle of music came from the box in his hands. He couldn’t help but imagine her bright smile if she heard it. Daryl bit down on his cheek hard, closing the box and setting it aside. Maggie stirred and stiffened as she woke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would love to hear what you think!


	2. Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place in 5x12.

“You look ridiculous,” he called after Carol, still scowling as he messed with his bow.

“She looks nice.”

Turning his head, he saw her perched on the porch railing across from him, one leg pulled to her chest and the other dangling over the edge. She was completely clean, no dirt or blood in sight. The sun reflected off of her golden hair and there was a light flush in her cheeks. Her fingers drummed on the worn white wood of the railing, beating out a song that only she could hear.

“What do you think?” he asked, jerking his head towards the area surrounding them.

Asking a dead girl about his new living arrangement might’ve seemed strange but then again, in this world, it also could’ve been the new normal.

“I love it,” Beth said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear as she looked out at the street.

Daryl felt a strange tug at his heart and took a deep breath. It was almost possible to pretend that she was really here, that they were experiencing this place together. She would’ve fit right in. He knew that for sure. No one would look at her like an outsider, with her pretty blonde hair and big blue eyes. They would trust her in an instant. Daryl could just see her taking Judith on walks around the neighborhood or putting out lemonade at one of those monthly barbeques that Aaron couldn’t shut up about on the way to Alexandria. It was how things should have been and how they could never be. When he heard her tapping the toe of her boot on the railing, he looked at her again.

“Where’d you go?” Beth questioned.

Daryl shook his head, refusing to let his emotions get the better of him this time.

“Thought it was the dehydration before, when I saw you,” he told her, focusing on his crossbow. “Didn’t think it’d happen again.”

“You wanna know why,” she said, placing her chin on her knee.

He shrugged, glancing up at her.

“Why not Maggie?” he asked.

“She doesn’t need me,” Beth told him without hesitating, as if she expected the question. “She has Glenn and Tara. You won’t talk to anyone.”

He leaned his head back against the post behind him, unable to deny her words.

“When that car drove away with you, I chased it all night long,” Daryl said.

She smiled, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Of course you did,” Beth said, holding his gaze. “You’re a good man, Daryl Dixon.”

He swallowed hard at her words.

“Maybe you gotta keep remindin’ me sometimes.”

Her eyes fluttered closed and she took a deep breath.

“Nine.”

The word caused him to feel a jolt, like being electrocuted. Daryl knew that it was important but couldn’t quite figure out why.

“Don’t go,” he said.

Beth opened her eyes.

“I can’t stay,” she said, looking at him again. “I don’t make the rules.”

He dug his blunt nails into the palm of his hand.

“I ain’t sayin’ goodbye to you,” Daryl said gruffly.

“I’d be pissed if you did,” Beth replied, smiling at him. “I hate goodbyes.”

“I know.”

He stared at her for several moments, tilting his head in question when her nose wrinkled.

“You do need a shower.”

He scoffed, shaking his head.

“You ain’t really here, you can’t even smell.”

Beth didn’t acknowledge the implications of his words, dropping her other leg off of the railing before standing up.

“I can still tell,” she told him, smoothing out her yellow shirt.

As she did, blood smeared on the fabric, coming from nowhere. When she looked up at him, Daryl flinched when he saw blood leaking out of a hole in her forehead.

“Beth…”

She reached up, touching her fingers to the wound.

“It’s time,” Beth said softly, giving him a heart-wrenching smile.

When she glanced over his shoulder, that smile faded.

“Daryl,” someone’s voice came from behind.

He inhaled sharply, unwavering in his gaze. When she nodded at him, Daryl knew he couldn’t delay it. He turned his head reluctantly, knowing she wouldn’t be there when he looked back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I'd love to hear your thoughts!


	3. Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to keep this story kind of light-ish before drifting into the really angsty territory but this chapter threw that all out the window. The good news is that it's adjusted my plan to the story perfectly and I can't wait for y'all to see how it all turns out.
> 
> Thank you for the comments! They've made me very happy!!

“Well, would you look at that?”

The wrench in his hand nearly slipped at the sound of her voice as his eyes snapped up, finding her as if somehow he knew where she was all along. She sat on a poorly crafted workbench, legs swinging back and forth carelessly as she tilted her head to the side with a soft look in her eyes. He didn’t say anything, his eyes flitting to the open garage door before he let out a questioning grunt.

“You were just smilin’,” Beth said, a note of triumph in her voice.

Daryl certainly wasn’t smiling now, his brow furrowing as he returned his attention to the task before him.

“Wasn’t,” he muttered quietly, twisting the bolt until he couldn’t anymore.

“You can’t fool me, Mr. Dixon,” she said, a melodic note in her voice, almost as if she was singing the words. “I saw it with my own two eyes.”

He risked a glance her way, seeing that those two eyes were glittering with mischief. The same look he saw all those months ago, with nothing but moonlight shining down on that shitty little shack.

_ We should burn it down. _

“You should get your eyes checked, girl,” he said, dropping his eyes again.

There was no rustle of movement. No tread of boots over concrete. She was just there, kneeling on the other side of the motorcycle that was slowly coming together under his patient labor. Her hand reached out, pale and striking as it settled against the black leather of the seat.

“Ain’t nothing wrong with bein’ happy,” Beth said quietly.

His throat clicked as he swallowed, making him wonder when the hell his throat got so dry. He didn’t answer, giving her nothing more than a shrug as he went back to working.

“I know that you like it here, even if you don’t wanna admit it,” she said, those big blue eyes snatching at his heart as they stared right into his. “I know that you’re real happy about Aaron and the good work you’re gonna do with him. And I know you’re scared about how it all might fall apart, like it did everywhere else.”

Daryl just about looked away again, lifting his hand to gnaw at his thumbnail to cover the fact that he had no idea what to say. He eyed her warily, wondering what other thoughts she’d carve out of his mind. What else she lay bare before him, making him deal with it whether he wanted to or not. She wasn’t really Beth. He knew that. But she was as close as he’d ever get again, and a part of him never wanted to hear her stop talking to him.

“I know, I know,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Daryl Dixon ain’t afraid of nothin’, right?”

He couldn’t help it, the small twitch at the corner of his mouth as he let his hand fall to his lap, drinking her in from the golden shine of her hair to the scuffed toes of her boots with all the desperation of a man starved. Maybe that’s what he was. Hungry. Hollow. Growing more empty with every day that passed.

“I’m afraid of forgettin’ you,” he said, the words falling from his lips between one breath and the next, barely reaching his own ears with how quiet he said them.

Beth blinked three times before her lips parted, a soft sigh falling through them.

_ Oh. _

She hadn’t said it this time. Not like that night. The night that everything changed. He’d wished to go back to that place, that night, a hundred times at least. He wouldn’t walk away, thinking that damn dog was back. He wouldn’t tell her to go on without him. He wouldn’t let her be taken. She’d be here for real, not in his head.

“Eight,” Beth looked away from him as she spoke, flinching just slightly as if it hurt her to say it.

Daryl’s eyes fell closed and he felt his shoulders curve. Hunching forward. Making him smaller.

“Stop,” he breathed with a shake of his head.

He couldn’t stand to hear it. The numbers she wouldn’t explain. Maybe they meant nothing at all. He knew it was all in his head. Maybe they were just another fucked up part of this ghost that he couldn’t shake. Wouldn’t shake. Didn’t wanna shake.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice hitching slightly.

His head lifted, words rising in his throat. Questions. Answers.  _ Everything. _

She was gone.

He wasn’t smiling anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know your thoughts!


	4. Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for the comments!
> 
> This takes place sometime post 5x13. I've slowed the events of the season down a lot and I'm adding new scenes that don't really fit into the timeline of the show, so don't try to make that work. It won't, I promise. Everything moves too fast.
> 
> PSA: This is a strictly no Savior story. I don't have any desire to write that storyline into this fic so don't expect to hear from Negan or Dwight or any of the rest.

Though the motorcycle in Aaron’s garage wasn’t quite fixed, Daryl didn’t let that keep him within the walls of Alexandria. He didn’t give much thought to wandering the neighborhood and getting to know all the people who came before. The only ones who mattered one bit to him were the people he knew. The ones that didn’t eye him like he might attack like a feral dog any second if they didn’t keep their distance. With nothing but darkness surrounding him and a tree at his back, Daryl felt like he could breathe. He hadn’t been able to stomach four walls closing in on him since the funeral home.

As if summoned by the mere thought of that place, the echo of her singing voice floated through his mind as moonlight caught on the pale strands of her hair.

He didn’t look up from the crossbow lying in his lap, taking the usual care in cleaning the one thing that had managed to hold onto all these years. He could remember setting its weight in her small hands, letting her test it out before standing behind her, patiently arranging her grip until she held it just right. Even when her arms began to tremble with fatigue, she didn’t let it drop, walking through the forest on quiet feet as she looked for the signs that she’d learned from him. She wanted to learn to survive. It didn’t make much of a difference in the end. Nothing that he taught her could have done a damn thing to save her.

“You ain’t talkin’ tonight?”

It was unlike him to break any silence but her being there and not saying a word wasn’t exactly usual. It made him wonder what had changed. His own mind, most likely, since it wasn’t really Beth there. So what had he done to make it different?

“I’m not helpin’ any,” she finally said, speaking in the whisper that he’d taught her to use when they were out in the open. “Me bein’ around… I think it’s only makin’ you hurt more.”

A huff passed his lips. Not a laugh, but not a sigh either. Somewhere in between the two.

“S’not like I’d be feelin’ good,” he said with a shrug, keeping his attention on the stretch of darkness around him even as he talked to the ghost that wouldn’t stop haunting him. “Losing people ain’t exactly a walk in the fuckin’ park.”

He didn’t know how it worked, that he could feel her eyes on him. Like a weight. Pressing down. Crushing him.

“I’d stay away if I could,” Beth said with something lost and sad about her voice.

A painful jolt struck him directly in the center of his chest, nearly leaving him gasping for air as his hands curled into fists atop his lap.

“Don’t.”

His eyes finally lifted, just in time to watch a tear trace a slow path down her cheek.

“Seven,” Beth told him, as if it meant a damn thing to him.

Daryl flinched as if he’d been struck, his chewed down fingernails doing nothing to the palms of his hands even as he dug them into his skin.

“The fuck does that mean, girl?” he all but growled.

Beth didn’t answer, turning her face away to stare into the darkness. There was no telling how but somehow, as her lips parted, he knew exactly what would happen next.

“ _Well, God bless your crooked little heart_ ,” she sang, bringing to mind the haunting echo of her voice in the middle of that cellblock. “ _St. Louis got the best of me_.”

Daryl tipped his head back against the tree and let his eyes fall closed. Not for the first time, he was the only one who could hear her song. He’d be damned if he didn’t listen to every word.

 _I miss your broken China voice_ _  
__How I wish you were still here with me_ _  
__Oh, you build it up, you wreck it down_ _  
__Then you burn your mansion to the ground_ _  
__Oh, there’s nothing left to keep you here_ _  
__But when you’re falling behind in this big blue world_ _  
__Oh, you’ve got to hold on, hold on_ _  
__Babe, you gotta hold on_ _  
__Take my hand, I’m standing right here_   
_You gotta hold on_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!
> 
> The song that Beth sings is the same Tom Waits one that she sings inside of the prison in s3.


	5. Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all of you who are leaving comments! I promise that all of your questions will be answered by the last chapter. You might notice that there's more than just ten, because the story doesn't end when the numbers run out. That's all I'm gonna tell you.
> 
> This takes place in 5x15 when Daryl and Aaron find that blonde woman tied to the tree.

“Are you just gonna leave her there?”

The sick feeling that had been twisting and churning in his gut only got worse at the sound of her voice. He hadn’t taken three steps away from the tree before she spoke, a layer of steel buried beneath the soft melody. Daryl was glad that Aaron had split off to sweep the area for any other people who may have survived whatever the hell happened here. He was supposed to be doing the same, but her words stopped him in place.

“Don’t matter,” Daryl muttered beneath his breath, hoisting his crossbow up higher.

_ “It does matter,” she said, those eyes of hers wide and pleading. _

History repeated.

They had been through it all before.

“What if it was me?” she demanded.

_ “If someone found my dad-” _

_ “Don’t! That ain’t remotely the same!” _

“That’s it, right?” she said, and somehow he knew she was getting closer even if he couldn’t hear her moving. “You look at her and you see me.”

_ “I know you look at me and you just see another dead girl.” _

“She ain’t you.”

He barely managed another step before she stumbled right into his path, her hair gleaming bright gold in the sun.

“We burn the dead,” Beth said, her hands curled into determined fists as she stared him down, just as righteously infuriated as she had been by that moonshine shack. “You can’t just leave her behind like that. We burn the dead and we bury the living.”

“Not anymore,” Daryl said, something hot simmering in his chest as he started around her.

“She deserves better!” Beth cried out, flinging her arm towards the dead woman.

“And you didn’t?” he all but shouted, spinning around to face her again.

Her lips trembled as she looked him in the eye, color high in her cheeks as her chest rose and fell quickly with each impossible breath she took. A cruel mockery of life, standing in front of him like she wasn’t rotting in the trunk where he left her.

“Sure as hell didn’t bury you!”

He kicked at a nearby branch, sending it flying into a tree where it broke in two. It wasn’t enough but it’d have to do since there was nothing around for him to kill. Daryl knew if he yelled loud enough, he’d bring some walkers down on him. But Aaron would come right along with him and he’d have to explain why he was shouting at nothing but air. Her hand lifted from her side, unfurling from the tight fist as if she might reach out to touch him. He didn’t get a chance to see what’d happen if she tried before it dropped back down to her side.

“That wasn’t your fault,” Beth said quietly.

His eyes stung as he turned his back on her, dropping his chin to his chest and squeezing his eyes shut as a shudder ran through him.

“Shoulda done somethin’,” he choked on the words as if they were poison on his tongue.

“You did the best you could,” Beth said, her voice even closer than before.

_ Two skinny arms, surprisingly strong as they wrapped around him. Holding him close. Pulling him into the light. Letting him cry without letting go. _

“She was someone’s light too.”

His heart seized in his chest as he let the crossbow slip from shaking fingers. Pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes, he willed away the lump that rose in his throat and the tears that threatened to fall.

“You’re one of the good ones, Daryl,” Beth said, her voice barely above a whisper now. “Don’t you let yourself start forgettin’ that just cause I’m not around to remind you.”

_ “You can’t depend on anybody for anythin’, right?” _

His hard swallow clicked in his ears as he lifted his head, breathing in deep and pulling the knife from his belt. Turning back around, he didn’t spare her a glance as he made his way back to that tree. Her eyes were a heavy weight on him as he sawed at the ropes, freeing them one at a time until the body of the woman tumbled to the ground.

“You ever gonna tell me about those numbers?” Daryl mumbled, clinging to the distraction of her presence as he gathered wood for the fire.

His eyes lifted when she answered with nothing but silence, falling on her as she crossed her arms over her chest and looked away.

“I don’t have much time,” Beth finally said.

“That what happens when they run out? You stop comin’?”

She turned to look at him, a sad smile pulling at her lips.

“You won’t need me anymore then,” she said with a shrug.

Daryl bit down on his tongue, stopping the words that clawed their way up his throat. They wouldn’t do him any good now. Not when this wasn’t really Beth. Just like Merle hadn’t been Merle when Daryl shot himself with his own crossbow.

“How many we at?”

He asked as if he didn’t already know.

He asked as if the answer didn’t feel like a bolt to the chest.

“Six,” Beth answered, blood suddenly trickling down her forehead.

And in the blink of an eye, she was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would love to hear your thoughts!


	6. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not TOO happy with this chapter but it is what it is. I didn't feel like trying to rewrite it.
> 
> I don't know where this is in canon, tbh. Sometime between 5x15 and 5x16. But the whole thing with Jessie and Pete isn't really happening. Alexandria is more peaceful than in canon, because I said so.

As her hair caught the glow of the lamplight in the corner of his eye, Daryl’s responding flinch didn’t go unnoticed. Carol gave him a questioning look with worry lurking in her eyes. He chose to ignore it, leaning further into the shadow so that no one saw how quickly his skin lost its color. Of all the times he’d seen her, this somehow struck him deeper than any other. Cross-legged on the floor not two feet away from him, looking on with a sad smile as Judith crawled around to whatever lap she felt deserved her attention at that moment.

“She’s gettin' big,” Beth said quietly.

Daryl didn’t dare look her way, lifting his thumb to chew on his nail as he kept his eyes fixed firmly on the ground. It had never happened like this, with other people around. He had to wonder if he’d summoned her from the depths of his mind as he watched Judith play around, since the little girl always brought to mind the one person who had taken care of her more than any other at the prison.

“Remember that first day with her?” Beth said, sounding as if she didn’t even mind that he wouldn’t answer. “You saved her life, goin’ out there to find that formula.”

He felt her eyes on him and shifted enough to give a shrug that no one else noticed.

_ “Wasn’t nothin, _ ” he might have said if the others weren’t around.

_ “It was everything,” _ Beth might have responded if he did.

She hummed in his peripheral as the activity swelled around them. Maggie and Glenn were so close together on a couch that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began, sharing it only with Tara. Rick and Michone were snickering at something that Carl described with waving motions of his hands. Carol sat close to Sasha, a soothing balm to the latter’s weary, raging spirit. Rosita sat in front of Tara, sipping on a glass of wine as the other woman wove her hair into a complicated mess of braids. Abraham was on the wall that evening and the room was quieter without his boisterous voice.

Daryl found himself pulled out of his quiet watchfulness by a tug on his boot. Casting his eyes to the source, he couldn’t help the twitch of his lips as Judith gave him a smile, still pulling at the laces that she had no hope of untying. When he wiggled his foot gently, she let out a bright giggle and batted at the steel toes of his boot with delight in her eyes. Then her hands fisted in his pants as she tried to hoist herself over his bent knees, a small line forming between her eyebrows when she fell back on her rump. Judith looked at him with wide eyes as if she had no idea what happened only to let out another laugh as she stretched her arms towards him.

“Alright,” he mumbled, giving her a put-upon look that no one else in the room believed. “C’mere, Lil' Asskicker.”

Carefully grasping her under the arms, he hoisted her up into his lap with an exaggerated groan and stretched his legs out to make room for her. She made no secret of her satisfaction, squealing enthusiastically as she slapped her hands against the arm he wrapped around her stomach to keep her from toppling right off. Daryl pretended not to notice the specter in the room shifting closer to the both of them only to look up when he heard the soft, melodic tones of her laughter.

“She loves you,” Beth said, her eyes shining as she looked into his.

Daryl chewed at his lower lip, looking down as Judith entertained herself by yanking at the frayed threads on the knee of his pants.

“Loved you more,” he mumbled so quietly that it sounded like nothing more than a hum to anyone else in the room.

But she understood. Settling against the wall next to him, Beth drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins.

“You’ll keep lookin’ after her for me,” she said with certainty,

Daryl swallowed the words that rose in his throat. That she should have been the one sitting there, rocking Judith in her arms and singing to her quietly, putting her to sleep like she did all those nights in the prison. He wondered if the little girl remembered Beth at all. If she found herself looking around for a flash of blonde hair or straining her ears for the sound of a song that they would never hear again. As if hearing his thoughts, Judith leaned into his chest with a small, whimpering sigh. Daryl couldn’t help but lift his hand to cradle the back of her head, sweeping his fingers through her downy hair as he let his own head rest on the wall, his eyes falling closed.

“Five,” Beth whispered, a catch in her voice.

The conversation around the room quieted to a lull as Judith slowly fell asleep to the rise and fall of his chest and the thrum of his heart against her ear. He was the only one who could hear the humming turn to singing, filling his ears until he drifted off to sleep as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear your thoughts!


	7. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place sometime in 5x16 but, like I said, the Alexandria drama isn't happening.
> 
> I have the all chapters but the final one completed so there's a fair chance I'll be uploading up to chapter 10 by the time the day is done, just to get them all up. So I hope y'all do mind having the story almost done!
> 
> I don't love this chapter or the next but they're a necessary bridge to the last chunk of the story.

“It fits you.”

Even though a cool chill hung in the air, forcing him to layer himself as he’d never really had to before, he felt warm all over at the sound of her voice. A note of pride in threaded through her words. He flicked the hair from his eyes with a toss of his head, looking at her warily as she approached on almost skipping feet, as if she was giddy or something.

“A lot better than that other one,” Beth said approvingly, taking in the sheen of the motorcycle he’d pieced together bit by bit over the last month, doing what he could with the parts that he had.

Daryl felt a sharp pang in his heart at the thought of Merle’s old motorcycle and couldn’t help but wonder if it still sat at the prison. Surrounded by walkers and rusting away. Imagined his brother howling out his indignation at the thought of his most precious possession falling into ruin. Remembered the crushing grief as he faced the dead, starving eyes of the thing that Merle had become. The thing he had to kill.

“I’m sorry,” Beth said, the cheer draining from her face. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

He shrugged it off, pushing Merle to the back of his mind. Just another piece of him gone, just like all the rest. A part of him wished she’d disappear. Stop coming. Stop reminding him of all that he’d lost. Just as quickly as he thought it, he cursed himself for wanting that. The numbers were running out all on their own. He didn’t need to hurry them along. Didn’t need to rip her out himself when she’d be gone soon whether he liked it or not.

“Daryl,” Beth whispered, shaking her head with mournful eyes staring deep into his.

“No.”

He wouldn’t talk about it. Wouldn’t think about it. Inevitable as it was, he would avoid it as long as possible. Pretend like he had forever.

_ “Last man standing,” _ her voice sang in his mind.

He shook his head as if he could erase the thought from his mind, climbing onto the motorcycle so that he didn’t have to look back and see Aaron and Eric saying goodbye near the car that would follow him out of the gates.

“Looks lonely,” Beth said.

There was something about the way she said it, looking at him sitting alone on the black leather seat, that had him looking at her with a frown. Something layered in her words that made him think he was missing something.

“S’how it is,” he mumbled, eyeing her carefully to see if she’d say anything else to raise his hackles suspiciously.

The smallest of smiles pulled at her lips as she stepped closer, her hand lifting as if she wanted to touch him. She’d done it before, always hesitating just before her fingers could come into contact with him. Daryl felt relieved every time her hand fell. He knew she wasn’t really there. Couldn’t touch him. Didn’t want to see what happened if she actually tried.

“Goin’ off to save this broken world, Daryl Dixon?” Beth said, that same pride shining in her eyes now.

He scoffed, looking away from her and covering the way his heart swelled at her words as he patted his pockets to find his lighter.

“You’re the best man for the job.”

Daryl knew without looking that she was smiling wider, a note of teasing in her voice as his cheeks warmed at her words.

If it were anyone else, he’d tell her to fuck off. But she’d do that all by herself soon enough and Daryl would never be the one to tell her to go, no matter how much it hurt when she was there. Aaron called out behind him, checking if he was ready, and Daryl could only bring himself to wave over his shoulder. Just as he reached for the handles, ready to start it up and go, he just barely heard her whisper.

“Four.”

The sound of his motorcycle drowned out all else but as he drove it through the gates, he glanced over his shoulder just in time to see her waving at him, that brilliant smile on her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know your thoughts!


	8. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting to the good part after this chapter, I promise. Questions will be answered very, very soon. I know that the mystery gets frustrating and a little repetitive after a while but stick with me! The last few chapters are worth it.

Aaron wasn’t bad at tracking when compared to most others that Daryl came across. But he had a lot to learn and plenty of hushed questions as they made their way through the trees. He learned to differentiate between human and walker tracks pretty quickly, the satisfaction in his voice pulling at the memories that Daryl tried so hard not to think about.

_ “I’m gettin’ good at this,” she said proudly, lifting her chin as she gripped his crossbow tighter. “Pretty soon I won’t need you at all.” _

They kept going until they came across fresh tracks. A person. Aaron fell behind, trusting that Daryl would lead them there. He didn’t know exactly when she showed up. One minute, he was keeping an eye out for whoever they were following and the next, she was slipping out from the shadows of the trees and walking at his side like nothing had changed. Like he was back to how it was all those months ago, their strides matching and their eyes sharp. Her hand on the knife that now lived on his belt. A daily reminder that it was real. She was gone, even when she was there.

“I like him,” Beth said, glancing over her shoulder at Aaron. “He’s just what you need.”

Daryl knew that if she were there, that she and Aaron would get along easily. They both had that light in their eyes. That belief in the world. In him. Once they found who they were looking for, a man alone with a rain poncho pulled over his head and a half-empty pack on his back, Daryl almost felt overwhelmed. Seeing the bright smile she wore out of the corner of his eye just as Aaron patted him on the back. It was hard to keep his distance. Hard to shut himself away from the people who looked at him like he was worth something. Who made him start believing it.

_ “What made you change your mind?” _

Daryl looked into her eyes as Aaron busied himself with gathering the listening equipment.

“You,” he whispered, just loud enough that she could hear.

Her smile softened as she tilted her head to the side, as if she didn’t know exactly what he was saying.

“Three,” she said quietly in return, regret shining in her eyes.

He nearly flinched at the reminder of how little time they had left. Knowing he couldn’t stand there staring at her, couldn’t keep letting it carve into him, Daryl kept his eye on the man in the poncho as Aaron listened on the device he held. Daryl didn’t really know what the use was in trying to hear the man when he was alone. But Aaron was determined, not wanting to get it wrong. Not wanting to bring someone back who would put everyone in danger?

“What’s he doing?” Aaron asked after a while as they watched the man rub something from the ground on his face.

Daryl squinted through the borrowed binoculars, recognizing the plant he smashed between his hands after a moment.

“Wild leeks,” he said, realizing just how this man must have survived all on his own. “Son of a bitch knows how to keep mosquitos off of him.”

A noise of discontent reached his ears and he twitched his head towards Beth.

“You never taught me that,” she said with an exaggerated pout.

Against his better judgment, the corner of his mouth ticked upwards just enough to make her eyes gleam with satisfaction. Just as he gave a small roll of his eyes, a small rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. Daryl and Aaron both looked in the direction of the coming storm. It wouldn’t be long before it reached them. As he turned back, he realized that the man in the poncho was gone, moving on while they were distracted.

“Come on,” he said, urging Aaron on.

They couldn’t lose him now. When the rain came, it’d make tracking the man’s path near impossible. Beth took her place at his side once more, looking like she had no intention of leaving. He knew that would change soon enough but for now he could pretend like she was still there.

Looking for the signs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to know what you think!


	9. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a chapter I've had written since the very beginning of this fic. I hope that you all like it, because it's leading us directly into the resolution of all that's been going on. I'm so excited!

As he made his way through the seemingly deserted town, crossbow held just high enough that he was ready to fire a bolt off in an instant if necessary, she effortlessly matched each of his steps with her own. Aaron had split away to circle around the main part of the town. They’d lost the man in the poncho a while back when the rain fell and only could only guess that he’d made his way here to scavenge for supplies. Daryl tried not to focus on the gentle sway of her ponytail or the way her arms swung so careless and free at her sides.

He couldn’t be distracted. Not when it came down to someone else’s life. Someone who could be that rare kind of good that the real Beth had been so convinced still existed. But it became harder and harder to ignore her. Knowing that her appearances had grown closer and closer together. That the numbers dwindled. That they only had one more after this. A dreaded ending. He felt like something was looming over him. An unknown shadow that wouldn’t come to light until she said that final number.

As hard as he tried not to let her tear his attention away from tracking down the man in the poncho, Daryl couldn’t help but slow his steps when he realized that she’d stopped in place. Turning around to look at her, he found himself staring into her eyes that held a certain look that he had seen before. Immeasurably sadness mingling with awe, uncertainty, and a little bit of fierce anger.

_ “You’re gonna miss me so bad when I’m gone, Daryl Dixon.” _

There was no sad smile on her face this time. None of her lingering laughter still ringing in his ears. Just distance and the aching sense of finality creeping up on him.

“Don’t,” he said, a note of pleading in his voice.

Beth pressed her lips together, clasping her hands together tightly as she rocked back on her heels and inhaled a deep breath, looking away from him.

“I don’t know what to say,” she admitted, her voice catching on the words as she stared at the smashed-in window of a storefront like it might hold all the answers.

Daryl shook his head, taking a step back. Just as he did, her eyes swung back towards him and pinned him in place with their intensity.

“I’m not gonna say goodbye,” Beth said, her voice suddenly layered with steel. “Not ever.”

He swallowed hard, gripping his crossbow tighter as he fought the urge to yell out that saying that was as good as saying goodbye. They still had one more number. One more time. Why was she doing this?

“I-I do have to say one thing,” she said, taking several steps closer to him.

His mouth felt dry. His jaw clenched tight enough to ache at the effort. His eyes burning as he fought the urge to blink. He wasn’t willing to take the risk that she’d disappear the moment his eyes closed.

“I’m sorry,” Beth whispered, her voice carrying to him on the breeze that ruffled his hair and did nothing at all to hers.

Blinking away the tears that gathered in her eyes, she shook her head and lifted her arms to wrap around her middle. She looked small in a way he’d never seen, even at the farm or in the days after the prison fell. Almost as if she was trying to collapse in on herself.

“I’m so sorry, Daryl,” she said, her voice breaking again as she shook her head. “It-it’s going to get hard, after the next time. Really, really hard. I-I wish that I could do somethin’. That I could keep you from goin’ through it. But…”

Beth trailed off helplessly, tilting her head away from him as her lips trembled and her eyes fell closed. He could see the slow drip of blood start seeping out of her hairline. Knew what came next. Surged forward with a spike of anger in his chest.

“The hell’re you talkin’ about?” he demanded.

She blinked, looking back at him with turmoil in her eyes. Her body gave a shudder as she dug her fingers into her palms.

“Two,” she whispered, just loud enough that he could barely hear it.

“No,” Daryl all but growled, gripping the crossbow so tightly that his fingers ached at the effort. “Dammit, Beth, don’-don’t do this. Don’t go.”

Beth’s arms dropped to her sides as that blood began soaking into the collar of that dirty, thin yellow shirt that she wore. He remembered that day at the country club, averting his eyes as she stripped away the dirt and blood-caked shirts to replace them with the yellow one. How clean and fresh it looked on her. How it didn’t take very long before he dirtied it with one swing of a golf club, spattering walker blood across the front of it. She hadn’t even yelled at him for it, stripping away the pristine white sweater she wore over it before continuing her hunt for booze.

“You’ll be okay,” she said, that sad smile finally pulling at her lips. “I promise.”

He opened his mouth to yell something, he wasn’t sure what, only to whip around at the sound of low growls and a clatter behind him. Just as his bolt struck the walker between the eyes, Daryl felt the sudden sense of aloneness and he knew without even looking. Surging forward, he ripped the bolt from the walker’s head and wiped it off on his own pants before starting forward with a raging helplessness in every step that he took. He had a job to do. A person to find, who could prove Beth right once and for all that good people still existed.

Even if she wasn’t alive to see it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me all your thoughts, even if you want to yell at me.


	10. One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)

Maybe he should have found it harder to think with those damn walkers clawing at every inch of the car, trying to find their way in. But it felt too easy to deafen himself to their snarls and growls, leaning his head back against the seat behind him, knowing that there was no way out of this. Accepting that this was probably it for him. Not wanting to think of all the regrets he had, as if he had much of a choice at all.

_“What changed your mind?”_

He hadn’t answered. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Not with her looking at him the way she did. The way no one else ever had. He should have said something. Daryl knew that. He should have answered her, told her the truth. Then again, somehow, she seemed to figure it out for herself. To hear all the words he wouldn’t say in the silence that settled around them. But it wasn’t enough to tell the ghost of who she was. It would never be enough, even after he was dead too.

Aaron didn’t look as shaken as Daryl expected, for someone who had a whole life waiting for him back behind those walls. A home. Something that Daryl only got a taste of at the prison. In the moonlight with nothing but moonshine and open air between him and the girl that flayed him right open with a single look. In that funeral home, her voice filling the air as he laid in that coffin listening to the song she wove together. At least the rest of them were safe, behind those walls where he’d never really belong. In the houses that would never fit him. Not really. In spite of himself, a huff of almost laughter passed through his lips as he thought of the unnerving sterility of that community.

“What?” Aaron said, sounding more curious than judging.

Maybe that’s why Daryl answered, pouring out the truth in a way that he hadn’t since those blue eyes last looked into his.

“I came out here to not feel all closed up back there,” he confessed, glancing over at the other man before looking away just as quickly. “Even now, this still feels more like me than back in them houses. That’s pretty messed up, huh?”

Aaron gave it a moment of thought before a small smile formed on his lips, completely at odds with the fucked up mess they’d found themselves in.

“You were trying.”

Daryl scoffed lightly, giving a small shake of his head just as his eyes flitted to the rearview mirror on instinct. His eyes fixed there for a moment, his heart giving a lurch when he saw her staring back at him. Curled up on the backseat, tears shining in those eyes of hers.

“I had to,” Daryl said, looking away from them both.

“No, you didn’t,” Aaron said after a moment. “Listen, I saw you with your group out there on the road. Then you went off on your own by the barn. Storm hit and you led your people to safety.”

Daryl shifted in place, casting him an uncomfortable look and hearing the soft sigh of his name from the backseat. Her voice, ringing with pride. It shouldn’t have had any effect on him, but it did.

“That was it. I knew I had to bring you people back.”

Aaron looked away, eyeing the walkers before shaking his head with a curse on his lips.

“You were right,” he admitted after nearly a minute of silence. “We should've kept looking for that guy in the poncho. I shouldn’t have given up. You didn’t.”

Without thinking about it, Daryl looked up into that mirror again just in time to see her look away, a slow tear slipping down her cheek. He knew the feeling. He’d run for hours, trying to catch up to that car. Giving up when it got to be too much. More than anything, he wished he could go back and chase it for a few hours more. Maybe then, he’d have found her. 

Her eyes flitted up to meet his just as the thoughts passed through his mind and she held his gaze, saying nothing but letting him know everything. It made sense now, why he wouldn’t need her anymore after this. There wouldn’t be anything for her ghost to haunt if he was dead. Daryl looked away from her and Aaron both, pressing a cigarette between his lips. The last one he’d have, even though there were more in his pocket. He knew where he had to go from here.

“I’ll go,” he muttered, digging his lighter out of his shirt pocket. “I’ll lead ‘em out. You make a break for the fence.”

Aaron tried to argue, saying it was his fault. Daryl didn’t let him, even when he heard the hitching breath over his shoulder.

“It ain’t nobody’s fault,” he said, flicking ashes away onto the console of the car. “Jus’ let me finish my smoke first.”

That was that. Or so he thought.

He always seemed to underestimate the stubbornness of the people around him.

“No,” Aaron said after a moment, his voice more determined now. “You don’t draw them away. We fight. We go for the fence. We do it together. Whether we make it or not, we do it together. We have to.”

Daryl bit down on his tongue, fighting the urge to tell him that they’d both die that way. Instead, he gave a small jerk of his head, agreeing without really understanding why. Maybe he just didn’t want to die alone. His eyes flitted to the mirror one more time and she was smiling at him, even through the tears that fell freely now. He nodded his understanding, wondering if she’d be waiting for him on the other side of whatever the hell happened when he died. Hoping that she would be.

“Alright,” Daryl said, giving a firmer nod of his head as he took one last drag and tossed the cigarette onto the carpet. “You ready?”

“Yeah.”

They both shifted in place, one hand gripping the door and the other holding a knife.

“On my count,” Daryl said, his heart pounding in his chest as he readied himself. “Three, two-”

“One,” Beth breathed out.

He knew that she was gone.

He didn’t have time to think about it before he saw the blood.

It splattered over the windows of the car from every angle, dark and rotting and the answer to every prayer they never dared to pray. Neither of them had more than a single second to react before their doors wrenched open from the outside. Aaron flinched back for a moment only to stumble out as Daryl planted a hand between his shoulder blades and shoved as hard as he could. Seizing his crossbow, Daryl launched out of the car, swinging at the walkers before he even found his balance. He heard the sound of others fighting. Saw walkers fall one by one as he wielded his knife and made sure none of them got to him first.

Once they had a clear path to the gate, Daryl waited just long enough to see Aaron start towards it before he followed, keeping one eye over his shoulder and swearing to himself that the glint of golden hair in the corner of his eye was just a trick of the light. He nearly collapsed to the ground once the gate was closed and locked up, his heart rate slowing as the adrenaline drained from his system. Aaron hunched over with his elbows braced on his knees, a look in his eyes that Daryl was sure he reflected in his own.

“Thank you,” Aaron managed to say, turning to whoever was crazy enough to run out into that small herd to save two assholes that got themselves trapped in a car.

Daryl glanced up from where he leaned against the fence, breathing in and out as he caught sight of an older man with nothing but a blood-stained stick in his hands. There were others around him. Two young girls, neither one any older than fifteen or sixteen, one with loose dark hair that she tossed out of her face as she wiped her buck knife clean on the shirt of a downed walker. The other with brilliant red hair that fell unevenly to her chin, clearly hacked short with a knife.

A grey-haired man with wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth and a shotgun in his hands stood close to the two girls as if he took it upon himself to protect them. Another man, lean and oddly familiar in the way he looked at Daryl with wide eyes. Something about him struck at Daryl’s memory. He might have pulled that thread a little more if a flicker of movement in his peripheral didn’t catch his attention. Somehow, he knew what he would see when he turned his head, even if he didn’t understand it. The numbers were over, even though he felt no closer to letting go than he did that night in the barn with the music box. 

So why was she still there?

He couldn’t help how he looked straight at her, knowing and not really caring that the others would think he was crazy for staring off at nothing. Then he blinked and saw her, _really_ saw her, and that’s when the differences became clear to his eyes. Her hair, tangled and haphazardly braided over her shoulder instead of swinging around in a ponytail. Her face, streaked with dirt and walker blood that almost hid the scars. Her eyes, slightly narrowed beneath a furrowed brow. Her lips, chapped and parted slightly as her chest rose and fell quickly with every breath she took, leaving behind a mist in the cool air.

The faded black jeans that hugged her hips and legs all the way down to the scuffed black boots that she wore. The dark purple shirt beneath a grey leather jacket that was stained and stitched in several spots. The machete in her hand and the gun on her hip. The lack of trust in how she kept her distance, eyeing Aaron with wary indecision before looking at Daryl with a deep-rooted confusion as his heart did its best to beat right out his chest. His crossbow nearly slipped from trembling fingers as his eyes roved over her again and again, trying desperately to put the pieces together.

“You okay, B?” one of the girls asked from behind him.

She didn’t look over his shoulder, but her frown grew more pronounced as he received his final proof that this wasn’t like before. This wasn’t the ghost that haunted him. This was a living, breathing Beth Greene, standing in front of him like her blood never stained his hands. Like she hadn’t laid lifelessly in his arms. Beth, alive. Not rotting in the inside of a trunk in Atlanta. Standing before him now with the sun in her hair and blood still dripping from the machete in her hand. She took a slow step forward.

Closer to him.

Not close enough.

Her mouth twitched ever so slightly as someone breathed her name in a raw, choking voice. It took Daryl a moment to realize that it was him. She took another step forward. He matched it with one of his own, terrified that she might disappear if he made a single wrong move. She didn’t. Soon enough, they stood less than a foot apart. Her head tilted back slightly. Her eyes fixed on his, striking and blue and _alive_ . Her free hand lifted slowly, trembling just as much as his own, and Daryl held his breath as he waited for her to fade away. But then he felt it. Her touch, solid and real as she let her fingers brush over the worn leather of his vest. A slow breath passed through her lips and he could _feel it._ Right there and so real it nearly made him fall to the ground. Then she spoke, slowly and carefully as if she thought over every word in her head before she said it out loud.

“Who are you?”

His heart sank.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't kill me.


	11. Beth I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might notice that I've added another chapter to this fic! Yay!
> 
> Seriously though, this chapter is miles longer than any of the others and I didn't even get to the good part of Beth's POV yet. Sooooo I really had no choice but to add another one. Hopefully y'all are okay with that!
> 
> This chapter is fairly disjointed but I had a lot of time to cover so I hope it's not horrible.

There was very little to be said for being reborn into a world of bright, horrible light, into a body that she did not know. The scent of antiseptic stinging her nose. A voice calling on her to open her eyes. Lift her finger. Wiggle her toes. They asked for her name. Her head throbbed something fierce when she tried to remember it. Their faces swam in her blurry vision that took days to clear. For weeks, the mere act of breathing was as taxing an effort as she could manage. They told her that she would get better. She didn’t believe them.

Until she did.

They looked on in awe when she pushed herself up to sit for the first time. As she took her first steps from the bed to the door, her whole body aching the entire time, it seemed as if everyone in the room held their breath. It was an uphill battle from there, but the doctor with weary eyes and very little hair told her that she was strong. That she could make it through. She didn’t know why he believed that until the truth came out, whispered in the hush of darkness by a dark-haired teenaged girl in faded blue scrubs who shouldn’t have been in her room.

A bullet to the head. Yet somehow, she was still alive.

Later that night, she dreamed of a woman with dead eyes and a gun in her hand. They stood in an otherwise abandoned hallway, silence all around them.

_ “I get it now,”  _ she said, reciting the words as if acting out a script.

The woman lifted her hand, pointing the gun right at her. She felt rooted to the spot, only able to watch. A loud bang shattered the air around them and pain exploded in her head. As she gasped awake, lurching up and startling the doctor that was in the midst of checking her vitals, she found herself speaking for the first time since waking up to that bright light.

“Beth,” she said, her voice trembling and hoarse. “My name is Beth.”

*****

She got to know their broken world bit by bit, as the days went on and she regained her strength. As hard as it was to believe that the dead were walking among the living, Beth didn’t have much of a choice when she saw the proof for herself. Leela, the dark-haired girl that snuck into her room at every chance, became a fixture at her side. Hollie soon followed, with the prettiest red hair that Beth had ever seen and green eyes that reminded her of someone else. Someone that she couldn’t quite place in the shattered remains of her memory.

While Leela was all soft smiles and gentle encouragement, Hollie was made of much sharper edges that Beth learned to navigate quickly. They were both younger than Beth. But that kind of thing didn’t mean much these days. Not with the shadows that lived in their eyes. Beth got used to the looks that surrounded her each time she ventured from her room. Awe and disbelief from the ones dressed in scrubs. As much as she didn’t like it, she understood.

After all, how many people could recover from a shot to the head in the middle of the goddamn apocalypse? 

The uncertainty came from the ones in the police uniforms, as if she might lash out and attack them any minute in spite of her slowly recovering body. Beth had to wonder just how complicit they were in what happened to her. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to know the answer. Guilt from Dr. Edwards, when he thought that she couldn’t see. Complicity. It surrounded her. Even if she didn’t fully understand it yet, Beth knew that she couldn’t stay. She knew enough of her past to know that she would never have come to this hospital willingly. Dr. Edwards told her that she had people out there. A family. People that she’d been taken from. People who came for her.

People who killed for her.

How could she bring herself to stay, knowing that they might still be alive?

*****

She expected to leave alone yet wound up with a small group at her back. Leela and Hollie, who trusted no one in the world but one another and Beth. An older man named Stanley, who told Beth that she’d done a lot to help a friend of his. Beth didn’t remember much about Noah, only able to think of kind eyes when she considered his name, but she clung onto the thought that there were good people waiting out in the world. Dr. Edwards rounded out their group, refusing to leave Beth’s side when he was entirely convinced that she might develop other symptoms as she became more exposed to the way the world was now.

He was right.

The first episode happened the night that they left the hospital. Beth killed several walkers on the way out of Atlanta, the first that she remembered taking on, and found herself sitting by the fire that Stanley built while cleaning the hunting knife that one of the cops gave her before she left the hospital. One second, she was wiping the blade with a bundle of leaves. The next, Beth barely felt the knife slip from her grip as everything went dark. Distant sounds reached her, as if she was underwater and trying to hear something on the surface. She saw things in flashes.

A weathered barn.

People piled together, almost all of them sleeping.

A small box with fading yellow paint lying on the hay-scattered ground.

Dirt-streaked fingers closing around the box.

Hands on her shoulders, shaking her out of it. Calling her name through the fog that muddled her mind. She took a deep breath, filling lungs that burned fiercely as if she’d been holding her breath for too long. Dr. Edwards shined a light in her eyes, asking questions that she couldn’t quite hear. Beth pushed his hands away from her, feeling overwhelmed by the faces surrounding her. She swayed on the boulder where she sat, a light, dizzy feeling lingering in her head. She opened her mouth to say that she was fine but the words didn’t come out the way she planned.

“I love music boxes,” she said softly.

The others looked at her like she’d lost her mind.

She was starting to think they might be right.

*****

Beth took to the world easily, surprising them all when she tracked animals through the trees and fashioned snares with a skill that she didn’t remember learning. Killing walkers with an ease that she didn’t expect of herself. Siphoning gas for the cars they found along the way and scouting abandoned stores and houses for whatever food they could scrape together. She didn’t know what made her go north. Only that the others followed without question when she decided that was the only path they could take.

*****

The next time it happened, leaving her with the blurred memory of a clean suburban neighborhood, Dr. Edwards theorized that she must be suffering from a rare form of seizure. The others looked at Beth as if she might be upset by the news. She simply shrugged and continued skinning the squirrel she’d caught with a deft, practiced hand. She’d survived the end of the world and a bullet to the brain. She didn’t know that anything could faze her now.

Until they found the man with the map.

*****

Steven Edwards was no fighter, taking down the occasional walker or two but largely remaining out of the way so that he didn’t become a liability. Stanley did his best but his old bones moved much slower and he did better at killing from a distance. The longer they spent on the road, coming across larger and larger groups of the dead because going north meant bigger populations, the more Leela and Hollie learned. They took on the dead with Beth in the lead, learning to wield knives, crowbars, and the occasional gun almost effortlessly.

A few days after the weather began to turn from warm to cool, forcing them to seek shelter and better clothing, they found themselves all but pinned by a small herd in the center of a stripped town that offered nothing but a few moth-eaten blankets and cans of food. They tried to fight their way out of it, their limbs growing weary as they took down walker after walker only for wave after wave to attack. She knew that this had to be the end. It was a miracle that none of them had been bitten yet.

With nothing but fragmented memories of the family that she must have loved and people that she barely knew surrounding her, Beth knew she wasn’t ready to die. So when she saw a figure seemingly appear from nowhere at all, wielding a sharp-ended staff that he used to carve a path through the hoard that surrounded them, she felt a swell of renewed energy and, mindless of the rotting blood that covered her and the persistent throb in her head, threw herself back into the fight.

By the time bodies littered the ground, they were all half-collapsed with them, managing only to stagger away before looking to the stranger that had come along to save their collective asses. Beth slid to the ground against the brick outer wall of a bank and pressed a hand to her forehead, closing her eyes against the bright sun as she gave herself a chance to breathe through the pain. A gentle hand nudged her shoulder as she heard the distant rattle of a pill bottle and Dr. Edwards introducing them all to the staff-wielding man.

“Thanks Lee,” Beth said quietly, offering as much of a smile as she could manage as the younger girl dropped a couple of tablets into her hand.

She used as little water as she could to swallow the medicine that the doctor insisted she take when the pain became too much to handle. Beth couldn’t help but eye the stranger warily as Hollie dropped down to sit next to her with a narrowed, suspicious gaze. He seemed quiet, shifting in place as if he wasn’t quite comfortable being so near to them. He must have been alone for a while. Beth couldn’t imagine it, suffering the world as it was all by herself. She would have left the hospital on her own, if she had to, but a part of her was glad there were others.

“Morgan,” the man mumbled in answer to Dr. Edward’s question. “I’m heading to D.C.”

Beth closed her eyes as she felt a tug deep within her mind, seeing her own pale hands reach out for a silver spoon. Etched into the metal was a building that was underlined by  **Washington D.C.** . 

“Another seizure?” Leela asked worriedly as Beth inhaled a sharp breath.

She shook her head, curling her hands over her bent knees to look at where Dr. Edwards, Stanley, and Morgan were now looking over a wrinkled map.

“Rick?” Stanley asked aloud.

Morgan nodded slowly as Beth felt her heart pick up pace for reasons she didn’t yet know.

“Rick Grimes,” he said solemnly, keeping his eyes fixed on the map. “A good man. Maybe one of the last ones left.”

Beth’s chest grew tight as she dug her fingernails into her pants, her breaths coming quicker as something pushed through the ache and nearly bowled her over with the force of the memory.

_ A lean, bearded man wielding a shovel, teaching a young boy the right way to dig into tough soil. His eyes bright with hope. A smile pulling at his lips. Another man with white hair and part of one leg missing below the knee looking on with pride. She loved that man with such a deep, abiding familiarity that he could only be one person. There was a sturdy weight in her arms, cooing softly in her sleep, but Beth’s attention remained on the people surrounding her. Not on the fence that kept them safe or the man in the distance crouched next to a motorcycle. Something settled on her head and the boy grinned at her, bright and unrestrained. A laugh rose in her throat as she reached up to adjust the hat. _

_ “There’s a new sheriff in town,” Rick Grimes said, giving her a wink. _

Beth came back to the present with a gasp, finding that all eyes were on her. Dr. Edwards knelt in front of her but she evaded his efforts to question her, rising slowly on shaking legs as she fixed her eyes on Morgan. He stared back at her, equal parts wary and concerned.

“I know that man,” Beth said, taking a step closer to him. “Rick Grimes.”

Morgan straightened ever so slightly, something flaring in his eyes as he matched her step with one of his own.

“How?” he asked, his voice reflecting the hope that she could see in his gaze.

Beth inhaled deeply, tears stinging at her eyes as she considered her next words carefully.

“He’s family.”

*****

Whether Dr. Edwards was slowly filling him in or he was picking up on her state on his own, observant eyes taking in everything around him, Morgan quickly fell into the same habit as the others. Getting her to slow down when she started wincing and turning her head away from the bright sun. Reaching for the pills in her pack if he was the closest one to it when she pressed her face into her hands and fought the urge to cry at the pain, knowing it would only make it worse. Catching her if she happened to be standing when one of her episodes came over her.

Beth knew from Hollie how it looked on their end, cause she was the only one who was blunt enough to tell her truthfully. It was almost scary, knowing that she stared blankly ahead for a minute or two while almost constant darkness surrounded her mind, disrupted only by the briefest glimpse of places and people and sounds that she couldn’t quite place. They slipped away like water through her hands once she came out of the seizure-induced trance and she found that it was almost impossible to remember more than the tiniest details of what she saw in those terrifying seconds.

The glow of a campfire.

A blonde walker tied to a tree.

A baby pulling at the laces of a dirty pair of boots.

Dark hair and piercing blue eyes.

They were like puzzle pieces that she couldn’t quite fit together. Not knowing what to do with any of it, Beth kept those snatches of memory to herself. The others didn’t need another reason to worry about her. Not when she felt like she had to take care of them all, keeping them fed and moving. Morgan made it easier to handle the latter, helping her ease the burden of keeping them all alive as he guided them north with the map. Beth kept up her tracking and snares, earning the newest part of their group’s interest when she bent over and set up the traps on the forest floor.

“Where’d you learn how to do all this?” Morgan asked one day, looking more curious than anything else.

Beth shrugged, carefully covering most of the trap with leaves.

“The signs are all there,” she said, somehow feeling like she was using someone else’s words. “Just gotta know how to read ‘em.”

*****

More memories broke through as they moved along. One night, they shared a healthy portion of rabbit stew mixed with canned vegetables and couldn’t help but give into the joy of a full stomach. A single look into Hollie’s eyes, lit up with rare mirth, and everything about Maggie came rushing back at once. That delicious stew almost came right back up as her head felt like it was about to split in two. She could hear the others whisper her name with concern, not wanting to bring any walkers down on them by yelling out in alarm. By the time her stomach settled and the memories stopped their brutal assault on her wounded mind, Beth looked up with a smile that split the cracked skin of her lips in spite of the lingering pain.

“I have a sister.”

*****

She woke from a dream in the middle of the night while Stanley took watch, sobbing and gasping for air with the taste of sugary candy still lingering on her tongue. The others woke as she scrambled away from them, still feeling those horrible, clammy hands making their way up her shirt. All it took was the mention of a name for Leela and Hollie to exchange an understanding look. They chased away the others, clasping Beth’s hands tightly as they sat on either side of her.

“Gorman,” Hollie spat his name like a curse.

“There were others,” Leela said, her voice uncharacteristically hard and furious. “A lot of others.”

Beth felt sick to her stomach at the thought of him doing that to other girls. The dream ended with his cold, gleaming eyes staring into hers. She didn’t remember anything after that. Had something stopped him? Or did his hands touch more than just her stomach? Tears spilled down her cheeks without any sign of stopping as she fought the urge to scream.

“He liked my hair,” Hollie said, her voice toneless as she lifted her free hand to tug at her long ponytail.

Beth clutched her hand tighter and looked into her eyes, seeing the pain buried deep.

“Holls,” she whispered, shaking her head.

“You killed him,” Leela said, a fierce look to her eyes as Beth whipped her head around to look at her with wide eyes. “You and Joan. We all knew.”

A smile formed on Leela’s face, not sweet at all but rather vindictive. Justified. Beth couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that man wasn’t alive to do it to anyone else.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wishing she’d gotten there before he did any of it.

“You made it stop,” Hollie said, her hand falling away from her hair. “Dawn just let it happen. All of them did.”

She shot a resentful look to Dr. Edwards, who looked altogether ashamed as he glanced away, knowing exactly what they were talking about.

“No one else even tried until you.”

Beth laid curled up with them for the rest of the night, sharing comfort and heat like they had known each other for years.

And the next day, before they set off again, she took her knife to a grinning Hollie’s hair.

*****

The town had all the signs of being deserted. Trashed stores with broken windows, all stripped of anything useful. But Beth couldn’t quite shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. The others wanted to stop long before they made it through the town line. Beth had two seizures already that day and they left her with a persistent headache and hands that wouldn’t stop shaking no matter what she did. Despite the worried glances they tossed her way, she had pushed on and insisted that they at least find shelter in the town for the night. Now, she almost wished that they had stopped on the outskirts.

When they heard the distant sound of growls, enough to signal at least a small herd, the group slowed to a halt. Beth knew that they’d want to go another way. To avoid the walkers entirely, if they could. But her feet drove her forward, ignoring their hissed out warnings and shrugging off Morgan’s staying hand before she drew a machete from her pack. She barely managed to lay eyes on the hoard of walkers before that familiar sickening feeling pulled at her mind, sending her staggering to the ground just before the darkness shrouded her mind.

_ Everything was shadowed but she could see the interior of a car pretty clearly. The snarling walkers surrounding it mattered to her very little. Her focus settled entirely on one of the men who sat in the front of the car, hunched down and breathing out a slow plume of smoke. She could feel the hopelessness radiating from his dark form, her eyes stinging with tears as he tilted his head back against the seat and shook his head as the other man claimed responsibility for their current situation. _

_ “It ain’t nobody’s fault,” the dark-haired man muttered, his voice low and raspy. “Jus’ let me finish my smoke first.” _

Beth came back to herself, gasping for air and still smelling the faintest hints of cigarette smoke. Dr. Edwards and Stanley tried to keep her from rising, knowing that she always felt weaker in the aftermath of a seizure, as Morgan stood watch with Leela and Hollie. Beth brushed their hands away and staggered to her feet, taking hold of the machete once more.

“We have to help them,” Beth said, looking past them all to the surrounded car.

“Someone’s in the middle of that?” Leela asked with wide eyes.

“That’s why they have it surrounded,” Morgan said with a solemn nod, likely having figured it out long before Beth said anything.

Beth clung to the chainlink fence with one hand to keep herself upright, breathing through the shaky aftermath of her seizure as Dr. Edwards worried over her, claiming he’d never heard of a patient having three seizures in one day without serious side effects. She blocked him out, pointing to the open gate not far from where they stood.

“There,” she said, her voice sounding oddly hoarse to her ears.

“You should stay back,” Morgan said, looking her way.

She shook her head before he could even finish saying it, knowing that she couldn’t. Dr. Edwards hovered nervously by the gate as they moved through quickly, keeping a tight formation and killing off the straggling walkers that had given up on the prey that the larger group was after. The hoard was distracted enough by the people in the car to notice Beth, Morgan, Leela, and Hollie until it was too late. It was like falling into a well-memorized dance, slicing her way through one walker after another with the long, sharp-edged blade.

Her body thrummed as she felt herself coming alive in a way that she never had before. At least not that she could remember. It almost felt as if she was nervous, her hand trembling violently as she reached out and yanked open the blood-splattered driver’s door. She turned before she could see the person stagger out, making sure they had a brief moment to collect themselves before they had to start fighting too. It wasn’t much longer before she heard the shout to run for the gate. Beth spun on her heel and cut through the head of one more walker.

Hot on Leela’s heels and making sure that Hollie was somewhere ahead of her, recognizable by the color of her unevenly chopped hair. Stumbling through the gate on tired legs, Beth refused to let herself fall to the ground once more. Not around people she didn’t know. Bending at the waist, she braced her palms against her knees and fought to breathe in and out, feeilng not only the exhaustion from fighting but the lingering effects of the episode that came before. By the time she managed to straighten up, one of the men was thanking Morgan. 

Her eyes slowly rose from the ground only for her blood to run cold at the sight of a large weapon clutched in the hand of the man who hadn’t spoken yet. He leaned against the fence, his head tilted towards Leela and Hollie as they recovered from the fight with an ease born of months on the road, having faced bigger groups than that one. He was ignorant of her eyes, still fixed on the crossbow that he held, until he seemed to grow tense at her staring.

Something tugged hard in the back of her mind as the man turned slowly. Her eyes flitted to his companion, a man with too-clean clothes, curly hair, and kind eyes. Beth couldn’t help but eye him warily, wondering if he really was as nice as he seemed. Then she felt the heavy weight of eyes on her. Heard a gasping noise as if the breath had been wrenched from the other man’s chest by an unyielding force. She finally looked at him, the wounded, terrified look in his eyes making her feel both confused and breathless. His eyes. Blue and piercing behind a curtain of dark hair.

“You okay, B?” Hollie called out, clearly worried about the staring contest going on right in front of the rest of them.

Beth couldn’t bring herself to look at Hollie, much less answer her. Every shred of her attention was focused on the man who stood before her. A man she knew she’d seen before. A man that her broken mind couldn’t offer any explanation for. Out of his mouth came her name, choked out in a voice so heartwrenching that it nearly drove her to her knees. Beth took a slow step forward, gripping the machete in her hand as tightly as she could to keep herself grounded. He matched her step with one of his own and soon enough, before she could blink, they were standing mere inches apart.

After another few moments of staring into his eyes, Beth finally tore her gaze away and lifted a slow, shaking hand to the vest he wore layered over a jacket. He stared at her with fear in his eyes as she brushed her fingers over the worn black leather. His body seemed to slump with relief at her touch. She didn’t understand.  _ Couldn’t  _ understand. If he knew her, if he was important to her, then why couldn’t she remember him? Why wouldn’t her mind offer her even a single memory of him, apart from the intense stare that he gave her even now? Beth let out a soft sigh before the words crawled up her throat, rising to her lips before she could stop them.

“Who are you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you think??
> 
> Beth's seizures are modeled after Atypical Absence Seizures, which are a real thing. There are a lot of stories about seizures having connection to spiritual, out of body experiences. I don't know if they're true or not but this is fanfiction of a zombie show so why not have some supernatural stuff thrown on in there? So was it a part of Beth, buried deep in her mind that remembers everything? Maybe! I'll let you guys decide what you think. I hope y'all like that particular resolution to the mystery!
> 
> Next up, we see exactly how Daryl reacts to Beth's lack of memory. BUT, not from his point of view. It'll be another Beth chapter. Y'all will love it, I hope!


	12. Beth II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter of this particular fic! But I would read the end notes if I were you. Might be something worth reading there.
> 
> I want to thank everyone who read and commented here so much! I wouldn't have made it anywhere close to the end of this fic if I didn't have y'all supporting me. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Beth’s hand fell away as the man in front of her reeled back, almost like her words were a physical blow. His eyes grew hard as steel as his tense body moved further away from her own. She felt a rush of regret and mortification for touching him without even knowing his name, her cheeks growing warm as she stepped back from him as well.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, darting her eyes away from him. “I shouldn’t have touched you like that. I just-”

He turned away from her before she could even finish the thought as if he couldn’t stand to hear another word. Beth felt a sudden wave of rejection that made absolutely no sense as he stalked towards Dr. Edwards. With wide eyes, she watched as the stranger bent his head towards the doctor and muttered something that she couldn’t quite hear before steering him away. Silence fell in their wake as no one quite knew what to say.

Beth felt her gaze still riveted towards the crossbow-wielding man as he seemed to tower over a nervous-looking Dr. Edwards even though their heights weren’t too different. She barely even noticed when the others began talking around her, their voices a faint hum in the background as she watched the scene play out several feet away. It didn’t take long for the man to distance himself from the doctor, almost shrinking in on himself right before her eyes. Edwards looked at him with quiet sympathy as he spoke. She wished that she knew what they were saying and somehow knew that they were talking about her.

“B?” Hollie’s voice tore her attention away from the two men.

“Hmm?” she said, blinking with confusion as she felt their eyes on her, all waiting for something.

“Aaron told us that they have a community,” Leela said, a small frown on her face. “Didn’t you hear?”

Beth shook her head slowly, looking towards the curly-haired man who must have been Aaron. He gave her a kind smile and held out a bottle of water that she felt hesitant to take.

“Beth, right?” he asked as if his companion hadn’t choked out her name mere minutes ago.

She nodded, weighing the bottle of water in her hands without opening it. As much as she wanted to believe these people, to trust that they were good, it felt like it was almost too good to be true. One of them clearly knew her, even if she didn’t remember him. Maybe it should have made her happy, knowing that she meant something to someone. But all that Beth could wonder was why she woke up in a hospital all alone if there were people out there who cared. Her eyes flitted back to Edwards just in time to see the other man turning away with a devastatingly hopeless look on his face.

Beth knew without asking that it was because of her. Her heart sank as a sick feeling stirred in her stomach, knowing that she was putting someone through pain like that merely by being alive. She tried to tear her eyes away from him but she just couldn’t quite manage it until he scrubbed his hands down his face and turned to walk back over to them with long, impatient strides.

“Gotta go,” he said brusquely, adjusting the strap of the crossbow on his shoulder. “Whoever set up that trap is gonna come back soon and we ain’t gonna be here when they do.”

“We haven’t made a decision yet,” Stanley pointed out.

Beth watched as the dark-haired man fixed Stanley with a piercing gaze.

“The hell else you gonna do?”

No one had any answer for him. Beth glanced around at the others and saw no hesitation in their eyes. She knew that they wouldn’t split up. Not after months of taking every step with the people around her. He was right. They didn’t have any choice. Beth stepped away from the rest of them, retrieving her fallen backpack and hoisting it onto her shoulders. As if convinced by her silent decision, the others began readying themselves as well. Before any of them could even ask where they were going, she found herself staring at a pair of faded wings stitched onto the retreating back of a man that she couldn’t stop wishing she remembered.

“Your friend isn’t exactly the social type, huh?” Stanley asked Aaron, though his eyes flitted to Beth as if he expected her to have something to say about it.

“Daryl is… Daryl,” Aaron said after a moment, giving a shrug with a small smile. “I wouldn’t want anyone else watching my back, though.”

He left it at that, though he gave Beth a curious look before jogging to catch up. She surged forward before anyone could ask her questions about all that had happened in the last several minutes. The last thing she wanted to do was search her mind for answers that she didn’t have. All that she could think as she followed his lead, is that she finally knew his name. It didn’t do her much good. The sound of it stirred up nothing in the depths of her mind. But she was determined to remember him. Determined to understand why he looked at her like she was all that he had left in this broken world.

*****

They kept up a steady pace, not too quick so that they wouldn’t tire quickly but determined enough that they were able to leave the town behind within a few minutes. They all breathed a little bit easier when they passed the town limit sign and began trudging through the woods. Before, when it was just her and the others, she would have taken the lead and kept her eyes out for any tracks. Animal, walker, human. It was her job to know what surrounded them at all times. Now, she trailed towards the back of the group, her eyes still fixed on  _ him _ .

Daryl.

Beth ignored the steady, painful throb in her head as she repeated his name in her mind over and over again. Trying to stir up some kind of memory. She knew that she had looked into that intense gaze of his before. That she had been near that crossbow before. If she thought about it long enough, she might even feel its weight in her hands as if she’d held it. Even the red rag sticking out of his back pocket made her feel something. But that wasn’t enough. She wanted something tangible. Something  _ real. _ A memory to grasp onto, to show her what kind of man he was.

She had no idea how long they walked, letting her one-track focus get the best of her as she sipped at the water in her hand at regular intervals. The sun had begun its descent from the height of its cycle, the position telling them that it was mid-afternoon. Daryl and Aaron led the group, the latter talking in quiet tones that were answered with little more than a jerk of the head or a grunt if he was lucky. The others were used to Beth being quiet, not just while they walked but all of the time.

Sometimes, it felt like too much effort to speak. Words came slowly to her and on occasion, it felt like her tongue was weighed down in her mouth when she tried to speak. So they all let her be and Beth was grateful for it, even if she felt the weight of their worried looks cast her way every once in a while. She kept her eyes forward, fixed on the winged vest that guided them without faltering. He knew exactly where he was going, his head dipping for his eyes to search the ground every so often.

Beth knew that he was tracking, possibly his own tracks back to wherever they were going. Was it him who taught her all that she knew? Was that all she was allowed to keep of him? She strained within her mind to remember, feeling as if she was pushing against a brick wall. Beth breathed in a quiet, shuddering breath as a sharp pain suddenly cut through her head, nearly sending her staggering to the side. She managed to keep herself upright, coming to a stop and swaying on the spot as she closed her eyes, trying to push away the dizziness that suddenly enveloped her.

The blood-crusted machete slipped from her hand, making a quiet impact on the ground as her stomach lurched and she suddenly felt a steady stream of snot run from her nose. Beth lifted her hand to wipe it away just as she heard a muffled cry reach her ears. Her eyes fluttered open and she blinked with confusion as she saw Leela dart towards her with a panicked look on her face. Lowering her eyes, she saw that her hand was stained with scarlet blood. Not thick and rotting like walker blood. Human blood. Her blood.

“Oh,” she breathed, realizing where it came from before lifting her other hand to her nose.

Something clasped her wrist tightly before she could and she looked up just in time to see that intense blue gaze staring into her own. His other hand took hold of her elbow, guiding her back until she found herself sitting among the roots of a thick tree. Beth stared at him confusedly, wondering how he got to her first when he was the furthest away from her. Had the others stepped aside to let him get to her or did he simply move quicker than any of them? Beth felt as if her head was underwater as voices rose up around her that she couldn’t quite hear.

A flash of red in her vision and then she felt the gentle swipe of a cloth beneath her nose to clean away the blood as two rough-padded fingers pinched the bridge of it painfully. Beth jerked away, smacking the back of her head against the tree behind her. Letting out a pained groan, she lifted her hand to rub at the spot and glared at the man in front of her as if he had everything to do with it. His answering scowl was impatient, his hand moving to the back of her neck to hold her steady before he pinched the bridge of her nose again, shooting her a warning look.

“S’gonna make it stop,” he said quietly, and Beth realized that she could hear them all again.

“This hasn’t happened before,” Leela said, twisting her hands nervously in the corner of Beth’s eye.

But she didn’t dare look away from Daryl, finding herself matching her breaths with each rise and fall of his chest without quite meaning to. Beth didn’t know the last time she’d had someone close. Much less without feeling a rise of panic. But with him, she felt nothing but safe. His eyes flitted down to her nose before moving back up to hers.

“Is it over?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Almost done,” he said, his voice rumbling in a way that she could almost feel reverberating through her.

Beth felt something tug deep in her mind and braced herself for pain that never came.

_ “How do you know?” she asked, staring down the line of the crossbow with focus. _

_ “The signs are all there. Just gotta know how to read ‘em.” _

Beth let out a shaking gasp and he frowned, a line forming between his eyes. She didn’t know what to say, unable to even push past the overwhelming burst of warmth in her chest as she lifted her hand to wrap her fingers around his wrist. He stiffened just slightly, his eyes dropping down to her hand as if he didn’t quite believe that she was really touching him. The confusion, fear, and worry that stirred in his eyes pulled something else to the forefront of her mind. Not just words, but more. So much more.

_ Her ankle throbbed with pain as she struggled to keep hold of the crossbow, facing down the walker and pulling the trigger. The bolt buried in its jaw. Not enough to kill it. Beth let out a soft sob as she looked down at her trapped foot, tugging in vain at the contraption that caught it. Before she knew it, the weight disappeared from her arms and she looked up in time to see him clock the walker over the head with his crossbow. The momentum of his swing carried him right back around to her and he dropped his weapon to the ground carelessly. She couldn’t help but notice his shaking hands as he freed her from the trap, gently taking hold of her foot with one hand and her calf through the other. _

She felt the pressure on the bridge of her nose go away but he didn’t stop touching her, his thumb gently rubbing where he’d pinched her tightly to soothe the spot. Her eyes opened slowly. She hadn’t even realized that they were closed. Daryl was watching her closely, giving her that same look. That same disbelief, as if he didn’t even know if she was really there. As if he never wanted to see her gone.

“Think you’re good,” he said after a moment, his hands slowly dropping away.

Beth released his wrist and nodded, watching as he picked up the red cloth from his back pocket where it had dropped on the ground. She almost felt guilty for dirtying it but somehow knew her blood wasn’t the worst thing that had ever been on it.

“I’ll be fine,” she said, breathing in and out of her nose carefully just to make sure. “Think I just pushed myself too hard, is all.”

He didn’t look all that pleased to hear it, glancing over his shoulder at Aaron.

“We’re not too far,” Aaron said with a nod. “We can rest for a bit.”

“I’m not tired,” Beth said with a shake of her head, earning herself several doubtful looks. “I meant up here.”

She tapped her fingers to the side of her head and Dr. Edwards took a predictable step forward.

“I was tryin’ to remember somethin’,” she admitted.

Before she could look at Daryl again, Dr. Edwards spoke up.

“Another seizure?” he asked.

She barely managed to shake her head before Daryl was on his feet with anger contorting his face.

“The hell you mean, a seizure?” he demanded, stalking towards a quickly retreating Dr. Edwards. “You been holdin’ somethin’ back, Doc?”

Beth scrambled to her feet, ignoring the dizzy spell that she felt once she was upright as she pushed past the others.

“Daryl, it’s alright,” she called, wrapping her hand around his arm.

It nearly sent her reeling, how quickly he stopped at her touch. His head snapped towards her, his eyes still half-wild with fury. Beth wasn’t afraid of him one bit, giving his arm a gentle squeeze and feeling nothing but hard muscle beneath her touch.

“He saved my life,” Beth said quietly, looking into his eyes without faltering.

Daryl’s eyes grew hard at her words.

“Yeah? He tell you what he did before all that?”

Beth nodded slowly, refusing to let his biting tone scare her away.

“He’s makin’ up for it,” she said simply.

Daryl didn’t look too convinced but she saw some of the fight drain away and knew he wouldn’t go attacking the only doctor they had with them. When he fixed Edwards with a look, making it clear what he wanted, the other man cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses before speaking.

“She’s had several non-convulsive seizures with no noticeable debilitating effects after.”

“Means I don’t collapse and shake when I get ‘em,” Beth explained when she saw Daryl’s brow furrow. “I just kind of… go blank and I don’t really remember much when they’re over. Think we’ve counted ten of ‘em so far.”

Something about her words made Daryl flinch as he looked at her again, something telling in his eyes that she couldn’t quite understand. As if that number might have meant something to him. But she had no chance to ask before he was stepping away, freeing his arm from her grasp as he looked at Dr. Edwards with a warning in his stare.

“Anythin’ else you’re keepin’ to yourself?” he demanded gruffly.

Edwards shook his head, looking almost as if he was searching his mind just to make sure. Daryl muttered something under his breath as he strode away from them, moving back to the front of the group to start leading them again. But he drew up short instead of just expecting them to follow, tipping his head over his shoulder to glance her way. Beth didn’t quite know what he wanted until he tilted his head ever so slightly in a silent question. She felt her heart skip a beat as she hurried towards him after retrieving her machete. There was every chance that he just wanted her beside him to keep an eye on her after the nosebleed and hearing about the seizures but Beth didn’t even care.

Because falling into step beside Daryl felt like the most natural thing in the world.

*****

Instead of the walled community that they expected, the one that Aaron spent quite a bit of time describing to them, they emerged from the trees to the sight of a car and motorcycle parked right next to each other on a dirt road.

“We’re still fifty miles out,” Aaron said when she shot him a puzzled look. “Beats walking, right?”

She couldn’t help but agree, her eyes flitting back to the two very different modes of transportation. She just knew that the motorcycle belonged to Daryl before he even crossed over to it, lifting his crossbow strap over his head as he went. Beth could easily envision him astride the thing, sunglasses in place and cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, smoke curling into the air. She didn’t quite know where that visual came from as she took a few steps closer, eyeing it curiously.

_ “Goin’ off to save this broken world, Daryl Dixon?” _

Beth frowned at the sudden intrusion into her mind, wondering where it came from. It didn’t feel the same as before. There was something distant about it. As if it was a hazy dream instead of a memory.

“Dixon,” she whispered.

His head lifted at once and he looked straight at her, leaving Beth to wonder how good his hearing was if he managed to hear her.

“What’d you say?”

Beth looked up at him, taking another step closer.

“Daryl Dixon,” she said, a small smile pulling at her lips. “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

He glanced around at the others before looking back at her.

“Aaron tell you?” he asked, turning back to his task.

Beth shook her head, her smile growing wider.

“I remembered.”

He grew still once more but he didn’t look at her this time. Beth watched him, hoping that he might at least show some relief that she could remember, that it would give him hope and not make him give up on her. But before either of them could say anything else, Aaron was walking over with a somewhat amused look on his face.

“We’ve got a bit of a situation,” he said, pointing to his car. “She only holds four apart from me. So unless we wanna start drawing straws for the trunk…”

Aaron trailed off, his eyes cutting to Daryl’s motorcycle before moving purposefully between him and Beth. She felt warmth rise to her cheeks as she looked down at the ground, suddenly finding the scuffed toes of her boots very interesting. It was one thing to walk beside him and let him take care of her nosebleed. Riding behind him on a very small seat for any stretch of time was a whole other ballgame. Beth felt their eyes on her and lifted her head slowly, risking a wary glance towards Daryl. He was staring back at her with hesitation as if he wasn’t quite sure what she thought of it. Finally, he gave a shrug and she knew that it was as close to agreement as he would come.

“Are you sure?” she asked, not wanting to make him uncomfortable.

He gave a grunt and turned away, swinging his leg over the motorcycle to settle in the seat. Beth wasn’t quite sure what that meant but she saw the tips of his ears turning red through his hair and almost smiled at the thought that he must have been embarrassed.

“That means…?” she said, raising her eyebrows in question.

“What? You want an engraved invitation?” he said roughly, his eyes flitting to her briefly. “C’mon, girl.”

Beth moved quickly, her heart racing in her chest as she eyed the motorcycle with wide eyes before carefully climbing onto it. The slant of the seat gave her no choice but to slide in right behind him, her face growing even hotter when her hips pressed flush against him. Aaron took the machete from her hand to stow in his trunk when she held it out, looking like he was on the verge of laughter.

“Fuck off,” Daryl said without even looking at him.

She could have sworn she heard a snicker when the other man turned to walk to the car, where the others were already situated inside. Leela was peering out of a backseat window with wide eyes fixed on Beth, as if she couldn’t quite believe it. Hollie leaned around her to shoot Beth a thumbs up and a grin. She waved at them both before looking away, trying to figure out exactly what she was doing with her hands.

“Hold on,” Daryl said over his shoulder.

Beth hesitated, taking a deep breath before deciding that she didn’t have much to lose. He didn’t even tense up as she slid her arms around him, clasping her hands just beneath his ribs and pressing her cheek right between the two wings on his vest. He was solid and warm beneath her, in spite of the chill in the air, and Beth knew beyond a doubt that he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. Closing her eyes, she had the sudden feeling that this wasn’t the first time she’d held onto him this way. It wasn’t enough. Not by a long shot. Beth wouldn’t be satisfied until she remembered everything about Daryl Dixon.

But for now, she was content to just hold on tight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more time, I'd love to hear what you think!!
> 
> I am actually considering writing a sequel to this. I'm satisfied with how this particular fic ended but I feel like there's so much more than I can do. I won't start a sequel unless I can plan out the whole story, like I did with this one, but hopefully it'll pop up soon. I'll announce it on this fic when I publish it.
> 
> I've also got some other Bethyl fics in the works, if you want to keep an eye out. Here's a couple of the ideas I'm working on at the moment:
> 
> \- The ZA happened a little bit later. Beth is in Atlanta studying to be a nurse when it all goes down. She makes her way to the CDC and winds up helping Dr. Jenner. She's there when the group shows up at the end of s1 and leads them to her family farm after the CDC is gone.
> 
> \- Different ZA au where Beth was in Atlanta with a school group when the world ended. She doesn't catch up with Team Family until post-s3 when they're all living at the prison. A certain someone (a crossbow-wielding someone) going on a run comes across her group in a nearby town and takes them all back to the prison without knowing yet that Beth is related to Hershel and Maggie.
> 
> \- S4 au where Beth gets away from the cops and believes that they killed Daryl after knocking her out. She comes across Rick, Michonne, and Carl and begins heading towards Terminus with them. So she's there when the Claimers come across them looking for revenge. I think you can tell where that's going.
> 
> \- A non-ZA au where Beth and Daryl are pining exes. Haven't figured out the details quite yet.
> 
> Keep an eye out if you want to read any of these. Hopefully I'll start posting on one of them soon!


End file.
